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The Lives of a Bengal Lancer has been in production ever since Paramount bought Major Francis Yeats-Brown's best-selling autobiography four years ago. Director Ernest Schoedsack (Grass, Chang) went to India, spent $200,000 on background shots of which 100 ft. appear in the finished picture. Almost every writer on Paramount's list had a hand in writing the adaptation. The original cast was changed so frequently that only two of its members—Gary Cooper and Sir Guy Standing—function in the finished version. Director Henry Hathaway, an obscure specialist in "Westerns" who had given up directing in disgust, was recalled to direct the picture. When Paramount finally got down to work, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer was made in 88 working days, mostly on location within 50 miles of Hollywood. Four thousand actors performed in it at one time or another. It cost about $1,300,000. Strangely enough, the time and money were well spent. In its finished form, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is precisely what it should be, a rich and engrossing melodrama, concerned with heroism, pigsticking, torture chambers, spies and the White Man's Burden, which should delight all occidental audiences and infuriate Mahatma Gandhi.
Captain McGregor (Gary Cooper) is a hardbitten, warm-hearted soldier. Lieut. Forsythe (Franchot Tone) is a flip Oxonian, with good manners and a lionheart. Lieut. Stone (Richard Cromwell) is the tenderfoot son of the stern regimental commander (Sir Guy Standing). The three engage in sport and pleasant banter until a rascally potentate kidnaps young Stone and the other two attempt to rescue him. When the potentate puts lighted bamboo splinters under McGregor's finger nails, he makes a face but tells no secrets. Neither does Forsythe, but flabby Stone despicably reveals the whereabouts of a British ammunition train. The result is a terrific battle in which McGregor dies, Forsythe gets wounded and young Stone redeems himself.
When The Lives of a Bengal Lancer last week had its Manhattan premiere, critics unanimously acclaimed it with all the adjectives at their command. Admirers of Author Yeats-Brown will find it as faithful to the spirit of his book as it is faithless to the text. Good shot: Lieut. Forsythe discovering that the squeakings of a reed flute, which he plays to annoy Captain McGregor, have attracted the unfavorable attention of a cobra.
The Unfinished Symphony (Gaumont-British) is a highly romanticized explanation of why Composer Franz Schubert never completed his famed Symphony in B Minor. Historically, he wrote it in 1822, two years before he became music teacher to Caroline Countess Esterhazy, with whom he may have been in love. According to this picture, Schubert (Hans Jaray) actually finished the symphony, tore up the end of it out of chagrin at seeing Pupil Caroline (Marta Eggerth) married off to a Hungarian nobleman.
Audiences for whom this sentimental fiction lacks the charm that might have excused its improbability, are likely to enjoy its score, including the Schubert melodies "Ave Maria," "Serenade," "Rosamunde." Good shot: Fräulein Eggerth (a cheerful blonde soprano, due next month to work in Hollywood) hitting high C in "Serenade."